


Superman

by Nadja_Lee



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Jim, Emotional Hurt, Immortality, Love, M/M, POV Jim Ellison, Resurrection, Sacrifice, Sappy, Self-Sacrifice, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-16
Updated: 2004-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22998754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadja_Lee/pseuds/Nadja_Lee
Summary: Jim calls Blair back from the dead…again and again and…[Printed in Come To Your Senses 26 in 2004]
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Superman

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Nancy who betaed this even though she’s not into the Sentinel fandom. Thanks so much, lov *hugs*

The first time was a nightmare. It should never have happened. I had failed you. Me, your Blessed Protector…I had failed my friend and my Guide. I thought if I drew away from you my vision of your dying spirit, slain by my own hand, would never come to pass. I was wrong. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, everything happened just like in my vision simply because I tried so hard not to see it come true. I pushed you away…I threw you out. I never said a word as to why, knowing you would have stayed had I said it was to protect you. 

Little did it matter. You were dead…gone from me. A million emotions ran through me at once as everyone gave you up. I could not let go…I couldn’t let you move on. I reached for you and I drew you back. Only when I stood to lose you did I truly understand how much you meant to me…I had loved you always but this was the first time I admitted to it. 

My guilt for my failure haunts me still but you were back and I wasted no time to tell you of my love which you luckily returned in kind. For a time life was good. You were safe. We didn’t talk much about how I had brought you back from the dead; both content to forget and move on. We even managed to get through the ordeal of your dissertation with our love intact. You changed fields and got a PhD. in psychology, still helping me at the station now as an official profiler. Life seemed perfect. You were home in my arms and in my love. You were safe.

Then it happened. Three years after that first terrible ordeal at the fountain I lost you again. This time it was a bullet through the heart. I jumped to push you to safety but only managed to take one bullet in the arm, the other got through and I had failed again. I could not let you go. I had to get you back. Once again I called you from the land of the dead, once again my spirit called to yours. Once again you were back with me, the wound healed as if it had never been there at all. This time it took a little longer for us to move on. I feared letting you out of my sight, my protectiveness threatened to strangle you and once again I was plagued with guilt. However, in the end our love shined through as time passed and nothing bad happened. I eased off and life returned to normal but with one major change. You began to gain interest in how I had called you back, wanting me to talk about it. You were fascinated with the fact that I hadn’t just revived you but had also healed your deadly wound. 

Thinking back maybe I should have had you locked up in cotton forever but you didn’t seem to like that idea much and I never could deny you anything, especially not your freedom. Instead this whole dying thing really got your interest and you wanted to study it. You began to read about near death experiences and the sort, coming up with theories about my abilities. You had a ton of questions. Could I heal a wound you got which wasn’t deadly? Could I heal anyone or only you? Could I revive anyone or just you? Could I heal and revive myself? Were my abilities special to me or something all Sentinels could do? I had no answers and had no desire to test it. Despite your searching you didn’t find anything conclusive either. I wished you to stop your study, wanting only to move on. I had you back, I didn’t really care about the hows and whys, fearing I might not like the answers should I find them. 

The third time I lost you, this time from a knife wound through the heart from a mugging gone bad when you had been visiting a friend without me, I began to wonder if you had set it up to see if I could get you back. Knowledge has always driven you and your fascination with Sentinels didn’t lessen with years. On the contrary my ability to see and speak with ghosts together with my ability to revive and heal you only increased it. I banished the thought that you would go that far to test a theory but years haven’t lessened your fascination with your own newfound immortality or my role in it and thus the thought still lingers in my mind from time to time. 

Again I managed to call you back after you had left to join the other side but I began to feel the physical not to mention the emotional stress that losing you cost me.

Since then I’ve called you back fourteen times, all from deaths like drowning, poison, strangulation, gun and knife wounds, all deaths that happened when I wasn’t near. Added to that I’ve saved your life over twenty times and that’s only counting things that could without a doubt have killed you. Almost fifteen years have passed since I brought you back the first time and I begin to see the difference in us both. My love has never lessened and neither has yours but leaving you alone gets harder and harder even though I know I cannot keep you beside me 24/7. I have to fight to enjoy every moment with you and not let my paranoid fears ruin the time I’ve stolen for us. And you…you don’t have a care in the world about it. You see me as your savoir who’ll always be there for you, even beyond death. Why should you worry? After all; you’re immortal. After all these years I’ve begun to get a grim suspicion. 

I have never been a very religious man but I wonder now if maybe people really do have a destined day on which they are meant to die. If that is so death itself becomes a fierce opponent who will try to reclaim what was lost again and again. What I am able to do defy all laws and all logic. By many definitions only a God can hold power over life and death so that leaves me playing a role I never wished to play. 

Nothing is ever free. I’ve always known that to be true. There’s a price for everything, including my love. Each time I call you back I see that price; I see the change but I never have and never will tell you for I know no matter the price it is one I pay gladly. Still, I cannot help but worry. Each time I bring you back I see my panther has grown dimmer, its colours fading, its strength failing. Your wolf stays as strong, unchanging, as ever but it has grown darker in its colours…moving towards black. 

To bring you back you must get some kind of energy from somewhere and I think I know where that is. Every time I bring you back I give you some of my life force, leaving me to wither away. Every time I bring you back…you lose a part of your soul. Normally I don’t believe in souls but I do now. I will always love you…far longer than forever but I see now that you’re not the same man I fell in love with. You have no fear of death. Why should you? You know I can always bring you back. Thus without it you leave yourself open for attacks…You’ve grown confident to the brink of arrogance in regard to life and death.

In a way you remind me a bit of how vampires and immortals are portrayed in movies and books. Knowing they cannot die, life needs to be constantly challenged in order to stay interesting. A good analogy I came up with the other day is that you’re like a wilful and spirited child in a kitchen, curiously touching everything without wondering about the consequences, easily bored and always looking for new challenges. Me? I’m the overbearing and loving grown-up who watches you closely, hastily removing all dangerous objects from your path and who runs to try and keep up with you, trying to deflect all dangers from you as you unconcerned move through life. I guess a lot of it is about love, guilt and the joy of seeing the one you love being happy. I wish you to stay unconcerned, happy and untouched by the dangers around you, no matter how strained that may leave me and thus I have never and would never tell you to change what you are. 

I know death is unavoidable. I know I’m fighting a losing battle. Death can only be cheated for so long. This is a downward spiral from which there’s no return. Yet I cannot stop. My love is forever…I cannot let my love, my world…my Guide leave without me. Slowly, painfully, each time I bring you back I’m fading away but you don’t notice and I will never tell. My dying breath would be for you; would be given to you. I will keep bringing you back, protecting you from death itself, until the day when my strength leaves me, when not even my courage or my love can fight off the darkness. Only then will I give up. But, as I leave, I will give you my last breath, my last strength. Saving you one last time…Just one more time.

_ The End  _


End file.
